Passion Fish
Written and directed by John Sayles
Starring Mary McDonnell and Alfre Woodard
Reviewed by Lee Wallace
The critics' pull quotes used to promote Passion Fish, the new film from the New York-based independent writer/director John Sayles, describe it as "warmly appealing" and make direct comparisons with Fried Green Tomatoes and Driving Miss Daisy, but the ads are misleading. Passion Fish is actually quite good.
When May-Alice (Mary McDonnell), a New York soap opera actress, is paralysed in a collision with a taxi she retreats to her inherited family homestead in the bayou country of Louisiana. After a succession of nurses and carers, Chantelle (Alfre Woodard) arrives. She has her own reasons for staying with the sharp-tongued, moody May Alice, and the film follows their relationship to the brink of friendship.
It's soap opera territory, but John Sayles isn't interested in manipulative sentimentality. He reclaims the material from disease-of-the-week TV and creates a graceful, leisurely character study.
Passion Fish is long for its genre, at almost two and a half hours, but that extra half hour was an astute decision. It allows the film the space to work against our expectations, the screenplay deftly flying off on unexpected tangents.
Although he works with small budgets, John Sayles always manages to bring together a fine acting ensemble. Passion Fish is no exception; it is extremely well cast, and the actors have been allowed to take chances.
Part of the film's charm is that seemingly marginal characters often launch into long, telling monologues. It's as if the languid Louisiana backdrop (ambiently photographed by Roger Deakins and enhanced with a jaunty zydeco score) has got under their skins. The dialogue has a relaxed, sly wit, and there are a couple of scenes which are comic zingers.
The two lead actors give great, self-effacing, spellbinding performances, avoiding histrionics. I've never thought much of Mary McDonnell (she has played, amongst other roles, Kevin Costner's love interest in Dances with Wolves), but she is more than fine here. Her early scenes at the hospital are all the more harrowing for their emotional efficiency. When May-Alice, who has worked hard to escape her southern background, lets her emotional guard down she also allows her accent to seep through.
Alfre Woodard is at first remotely and, we presume nobly, stoic. Gradually her silences and furtive glances begin to hint at Chantelle's past. Finally, as she and May-Alice form a tentative friendship, she allows Chantelle's vulnerability to show through her wide, jaded eyes.
The manipulative, sledgehammer approach in mainstream character-driven film is so pervasive that a movie like Passion Fish may miss some audience members completely. It doesn't score points by making an issue of Chantelle's race or May-Alice's paraplegia. Instead it works within an ignoble genre and then transcends its origins. Passion Fish is that rare achievement — a dignified crowd-pleaser.